Page 15 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

Oh, he’s picked the wrong fucking argument if he thought it would go any way toward convincing me of shit .

He’s spoken the exact trigger words to activate me and I’m seeing red.

My saliva turning metallic like blood in my mouth.

He wanted those stupid vinyls since the day he moved out which means there probably was fucking overlap. I knew it. Cheating piece of shit.

I get right into his face, baring my teeth in a snarl. “I don’t give a solitary fuck about your ugly twink boyfriend or his shitty music collection, Jord. You can both get fucked.”

His face shuts down and goes utterly cold in that way that always made me insane when we were dating.

The way he would never rise to the occasion or bait, or anything else no matter how desperate I was for his attention.

Even when I was melting down over the phone to him mere nights ago, he gave me absolutely nothing and he knows it makes me crazy.

I could open a vein in front of him and he wouldn’t bat a damn eye.

“You know,” he says in a chilly tone, “the least you could do is cooperate. For all the bullshit you put me through in the last year, that’s the very least you could do.”

My throat constricts. “Returning gifts? Gifts you bought me because you used to love me?”

His laugh is bitter. “Get a fucking grip. There was never a single moment we were together where I actually loved you. You’re impossible to love.”

And those words are far worse than a slap in the face. It’s like ice water. It’s like drowning. I stare at him and my mouth gapes as I grope for the breath he just knocked out of me before he turns his back and walks away.

I stalk the ten minutes through the twilit Fens back home, wavering between rage and despair the entire journey until, at last, I’m jamming my key into the door of my apartment.

I throw it open carelessly—it clips the edge of the TV stand with a loud bang—and then slam it shut behind me.

My bag is tossed onto the loveseat as I make a beeline toward my bedroom, where the stupid precious vinyls Jordan covets so badly are lying in their sleeves on my dresser.

My name is called from behind me: “Noel?”

Fuck’s sake. Somehow I’ve forgotten all about Luca already and the fact that he was moving in today.

Managed to miss the boxes and plastic wrap still scattered all over the place.

I ignore him. I pull the first vinyl free of its colorful sheath and, without hesitation, smash it against the edge of my dresser.

It shatters spectacularly into about a million scintillating pieces across the floor.

I don’t hear the rapid approach of footsteps as I raise the second one over my head, don’t realize I’m no longer alone in here until my arms are seized and I’m tugged backwards away from the dresser, away from my tool of destruction.

“Stop!” I shout, trying to fight Luca’s grip on me. “Fucking let go of me!”

“What are you doing ?” He sounds a mix of concerned and bewildered.

I struggle desperately but those biceps aren’t just for show; I’m utterly powerless to extricate myself, which only serves to enrage me even more.

He pulls me back against his chest and I’m still holding the intact vinyl so tightly it feels like it will break in my hands.

My chest heaves for breath and I feel his heartbeat bumping between my shoulder blades.

My blood roars like a tide in my ears, deafening.

“Noel.” His voice is very gentle against my ear, like he’s talking to an especially frightened and cornered animal. “Put it down.”

I don’t. I’m staring at our reflection in the mirror above my dresser.

My flushed and frenzied face juxtaposed beside his calm features.

I don’t even realize I’m crying until I see the tears, and my hair clinging to my damp face over and my bloodshot, swollen eyes.

I look and feel fucking insane. My reason has deserted me.

I want to hurt someone and that someone is myself.

I want to be hurt. It is the only way to feel better, to get this hot, sick feeling out from under my skin; it needs a pathway to escape.

I would bite myself if I wasn’t wearing so many layers, sink my teeth into the flesh of my pale, skinny arm like I have so many times before.

Luca’s gaze catches mine in the mirror, gorgeous and devastating, as I snap the vinyl in half and drop the two pieces to the floor with the rest of the mess.

I turn and crush my lips against his. He makes a startled sound.

He’s rigid, unpliant, his hands going to my shoulders and pushing me off of him and my fury returns, inflamed by his rejection.

“Fuck me,” I demand urgently. “Luca, fuck me. I want to be fucked. Now.”

“What the hell is going on with you?” His fingers dig into my jacket, holding me at arms length. “Noel, stop. ”

The tears are pouring down my cheeks as I pound my fists against his chest, weak and ineffective.

“Fuck me,” I beg, desperate, hysterical.

“Just fuck me, hard, something, please , just—” Can’t finish that thought because I’m bawling my fucking eyes out now, full on hideous crying and I can’t seem to stop, can’t even catch my breath.

The sobs stutter in my chest as I gasp and I know I’m no longer making a convincing case for myself, if I ever was in the first place. I’m too pathetic.

Somehow Luca doesn’t shy away from this absolutely unhinged display, and thank god for that because it would be just one more laceration I couldn’t bear.

He pulls me close again, lets me shove my head beneath his chin and cry like my heart is breaking because it is.

It’s on the floor in pieces with the stupid fucking vinyls that were never meant for me.

I hate myself for caring but I can’t stop myself caring.

I wish someone needed me the way I need them. I wish I was good enough for all that.

He sits me down on my bed. He unzips my jacket and drapes it over the footboard, then kneels down and unlaces my boots.

I sniffle and snuffle into my shirt sleeve as he takes them off and sets them to the side before he moves to sit on the bed with me.

When I crawl into his lap, he doesn’t push me away.

He reclines back against the headboard and wraps his arms around me, stroking my hair away from my damp face when I push it against the underside of his jaw.

We sit like that for a few minutes as my sobs ebb to hiccups, though the tears just seem to keep coming.

To be so impossibly full and so torturously empty, all at once. Contradiction. Conundrum .

“What’s wrong, Noel?” Luca asks me. His cheek is pressed against my hair, rubbing a little. It’s an affectionate gesture and I’m grateful for it. I need it. My self-destructive impulses have passed for the moment, leaving me tender and bruised in their wake.

I want to be wanted, that’s what’s wrong.

If not loved, at least wanted. Desired. Someone happy I was here, anyone at all.

I don’t say that, because of course I can’t.

Cannot be so vulnerable. Making a core need known means someone can shut you down and being denied on purpose is worse than being denied by accident.

I turn my face into his neck. His skin is still wet with my tears. “Do you want me?” I mumble. That’s a safe way to ask.

His chest rises and falls against mine as he sighs. “Right now I don’t, because you’re absolutely hysterical.” His fingertips ghost the back of my neck and I shudder. “And I have no idea what’s going on.”

“Am I scaring you?”

“A little.” He sounds wry. “But mostly I’m confused.”

I raise my face to his at last. His expression is carefully neutral, eyes studying me in that intrigued way they always seem to, like he’s interested in me and not pretending to be.

I want to kiss him and not talk about any of this.

I want to lose myself in him until I stop feeling so terribly empty, even if it’s only a temporary reprieve.

I’ll take it vanilla and boring and however he wants it.

But he rejected me once already and I refuse to put myself out there again.

I won’t. Twice in one day—first Jordan, then him—has already been devastating enough.

A third time will send me right the fuck over the edge and my sense of self-preservation is still intact enough that I won’t do that to myself.

I talk instead. “I saw my ex,” I say, setting my cheek on his shoulder.

“Oh.” Luca’s hand slides down to my back.

“He was with his new boyfriend.”

“Was that what upset you?”

“No.” I mop at my eyes once more, a futile endeavor.

“I mean, yes, but it wasn’t that. He told me he wanted to talk—and then it was just to ask for the shit he gave me for my birthday and for Christmas.

He wanted them back. ” A fresh onslaught of tears against my will but I can’t stop them, don’t even bother to, even though my eyes are burning and my whole face feels swollen.

I’m so cried out I feel nauseous. “I thought they were for me, you know, like he gave a fuck, but he never did. He got them for himself and he just wants to listen to them with his new boyfriend—” The sobs are back, expanding in my throat and making it near impossible to speak.

“Alright. Shhh.” He rubs my back, trying to staunch the incoming tide of another meltdown. “Hey, breathe.”

“—but fuck him,” I choke out. “I’m gonna mail the fucking pieces to his mom’s house.

I’m going to ram them through his car’s tires, I—” Am running out of violent ideas of what I’ll do with them, precisely, but it’s enough impetus to propel me out of Luca’s arms and off the bed, my anger reignited and overtaking my anguish once again.

I go to my knees on the floor and scrabble in the mess, grabbing for the biggest pieces I can because one of those ideas sounds good, presenting these shattered records to Jordan since he wanted them so fucking bad. Motherfucker.

And then Luca’s kneeling in front of me, his hands on mine and stilling them. My head whips up to his. “I’ll clean this up,” he tells me.

I wrest myself from his grip. “He never loved me!” I cried. “He said he never, ever loved me. He fucking lied to my face for a year and then he cheated on me!”

“Noel.”

He’s trying. He is. He’s reaching for me and trying to take me back into his arms and I’m lashing out, fending him off with elbows and bared teeth.

I want to scream . I want to tell him how truly beyond saving I am.

That I’m psychosis manifest and only masquerading as a human.

That I’m torn from mind and body both and I remind myself of that every day, tally it on flesh.

He has made a grave mistake in agreeing to this, in meeting me, in ever showing me kindness.

Behind us, there’s a low whine. I look over my shoulder to see a dog in the doorway.

“Oh,” I say hoarsely.

Luca’s dog . I forgot about her, too.

She’s a beautiful doe-eyed thing, a sleek black greyhound with a smattering of gray around her muzzle and smudges of white on her forepaws. She pads into the room, ears back and the very tip of her whip-like tail wagging uncertainly. Her liquid brown gaze seems to dart between me and Luca.

“It’s okay, Amelia,” I hear him say. He rises to his feet, presumably to escort her out of the room, away from the mess and the meltdown.

I drop the shards that I’ve been holding so tightly that they’ve bitten into my skin and cut my palms. Amelia approaches me before Luca can grab her purple paisley collar and, as I sit there silent and still, she snuffles my face.

Her tongue darts out to lick my tear-stained cheek. She whines again.

I lean my face against hers. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I don’t know if I’m apologizing to the dog or to her owner.